Today is for
the streams of 
“if only — “

if only the front room
was lush 
with palmetto,

if only the sink
was not full
of sharks,

if only you’d grown up
on porches
on Mars

and spent hours there
thinking about the art you’d make
if you could live forever.

Today is for
faking happiness with what
replaced dreams unfulfilled —

a celebration
of your absence
from your deserved life.

For the phantom
you became
in its impossible place.

What metal
did you sleep upon
last night
that conducted such dreams
and from what source?

You stirred 
with every spark 
that stuck you
in the dark; suns 
and their entire systems
revealed themselves
as you breathed in charged 
solar wind.

Was it copper
under your head,
was it gold? You can’t wait
to go back to sleep
and learn; 
to travel again into
the burnished universe
you wish you could claim
was all your own.

Calico coil
centered on
the living room rug

springs up to nestle
near me on the couch
as I weep and try to write. 

All is right with that;
I try not to think
about her, take less comfort;

there are holy wars
and greed to resist
as always, of course,

people I know
say if you say nothing
of those, if you don’t 

raise your voice,
you’re scum. So
I’m scum, I guess.

Still, the cat keeps me
from thinking
of my own death

and from turning
my eyes completely
toward darkness. Right now

death is greedy for me,
an unholy shadow
standing behind that.

Resistance
takes the form 
it takes — sometimes

as tears drying
on the calico fur
of a cat curled beside you

as you fight for
your voice to strengthen
enough to be heard.

It does not matter
where you find yourself.

End of
a cul-de-sac.

On the median strip
of the road to safety.

Alone on a trail through 
woods you do not recognize.

It does not matter
whether you are wealthy

or broke; with failing sight
or deeply healthy; broken

or whole. All that is of little
consequence and has no effect

on how you will take the moment
when you look into

the eyes of the Inevitable
and say, “Ah. Of course,”

one more time,
one last time.

Come from the highway
up Millbury Street toward home

on a day that feels like
the end of a world

in the after-rain sunset.
On the sidewalk is

the woman I’m sure 
a sitcom would name “Cookie”

walking away from 
a pickup with flashers on:

walking in a long coat,
curly red hair full of handsome grey;

walking an Afghan hound,
leaving the disabled pickup behind

on her way to somewhere
else. Leaving what doesn’t work behind.

Taking her comfort with her,
like Cookie in a sitcom finale.

You have become so timid
about how things are in your world, 

keeping to your grimy cocoon
even when it is touched

by something liable to break it
or tear into it before you are ready.

You’ll never be ready at this rate.
You can’t move in there, long ago grown

but unwilling or unable
to emerge. All you do is fret

about how it will be if you ever do,
about how certain you are 

that it won’t measure up
to what you expect.  

You have become so timid — 
stop. Better to be devoured

out there, it is said,
than it is to rot in 

former comfort,
filthy silk.

Stunning how the microplastics
catch the light as they float
in this glass of water
that I just took from the faucet,

how they spin in suspension.
I may yet drink it anyway.
It seems that I have little choice
if I’m to quench my thirst.

It doesn’t seem fair
that this has been done to us all
with only our implicit consent
by way of our consumption.

It doesn’t seem right
that the pollution, from 
what’s in the tap water glass
to the red in the sky at sunset,

is pretty enough sometimes
to distract us from fear
and disgust at what
we’ve made of this place.

Still, I’m thirsty,
and so I suck down
the glass full of poison gems,
this acknowledgement of guilt.

If you have words
to bind your pain, 
bind it and put it 
to one side.  Step
around it, walk away,
don’t look back.

You will
come back to it, of course.
One day it will reappear
in your path. You will
have walked full circle
and come back to it — 
it never moved, cannot
transport itself — but the words
that held it will prove
to have bound you too.

Here you are,
never having looked back
but with it in full view
before you.  The view
isn’t that familiar at first — 
you thought
you’d managed to forget?

Then you find 
your antiquated prayers — 
your knees crack 
as you strike the earth
with all your weight — that or upon
dropping to a bathroom floor, perhaps;

maybe you wake in bed,
with your knees
curled to your chest.

You may have no words,
now. You may be 
unable to speak
of any of this
to anyone but yourself
with something on your tongue
that is not open to language — 

well, you may have these words
if they work. They are as much yours
as they are anyone’s.